


Write You Love Me in the Margins

by srmiller



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/M, Fluff, and felicity hates her job, and i don't think i've ever written a coffee shop au before?, anyway, but don't worry!, olicity - Freeform, oliver's going to college, thea is a cafe owner, thea the match maker and Jane Austen's Emma is to the rescue, this AU was totally an accident
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-21 23:42:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9572078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/srmiller/pseuds/srmiller
Summary: “I thought I told you to leave your brother alone. He’ll date when he dates.”“But she’s perfect for him,” Thea insisted and was more than ready to have this argument for the third time this week. “They just need a reason to meet.”Roy raised a single eyebrow which was, honestly, sexier than it should be. “And you’re going to do that by giving them the wrong books?”“It could have been an honest mistake on my part,” Thea insisted. “They’ll both come back at the same time and talk about what a coincidence it is they were reading the same book at the same café and hey, let’s have coffee and discuss the pros and cons of Austen literature.”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GreenSunshine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenSunshine/gifts).



Thea watched one of her regulars practically run through the front door of the coffee shop and nearly stumble into the counter. “I have to catch the bus but did I leave a book here earlier?”

She did, but Thea took a second to tilt her head. “What was the book?”

“Emma,” Felicity answered, pushing her pony tail back behind her shoulder. “It’ll have a bunch of writing inside.”

“Oh,” Thea nodded, reaching under the register and pulling out a volume of the Jane Austen novel. “We did find this on one of the tables.”

Felicity didn’t even look at the book, just grabbed it and shoved into her purse. “Thanks! I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Thea didn’t bother to wave the customer off as she was already running back out again and from the counter to her left she could feel Roy’s eyes on her.

“I thought Oliver left the book this morning.”

“He did,” she assured him cheerily as she went to the pastry counter to see what she needed to stock up on. Owning her own little bakery coffee shop had turned out to be way more work than she’d expected but she wouldn’t trade it for anything.

The cute guy who came in every afternoon from the martial arts studio next door wasn’t exactly a hardship either. “So, you gave them their books back?”

Thea tried not to grin at how well her favorite customer seemed to know her. Which wasn’t much of a surprise if you considered how much time he spent sitting at her counter. “I gave them books back,” she answered carefully.

“Thea.”

“Roy,” she called back in the same tone he’d used.

“I thought I told you to leave your brother alone. He’ll date when he dates.”

“But she’s perfect for him,” Thea insisted and was more than ready to have this argument for the third time this week. “They just need a reason to meet.”

Roy raised a single eyebrow which was, honestly, sexier than it should be. “And you’re going to do that by giving them the wrong books?”

“It could have been an honest mistake on my part,” Thea insisted as she kept an eye on the new barista who was taking orders. “They’ll both come back at the same time and talk about what a coincidence it is they were reading the same book at the same café and hey, let’s have coffee and discuss the pros and cons of Austen literature.”

“Your brother would hate that,” Roy argued as he finished his pastry.

“Not when it’s with a pretty blonde.”

“I’m a pretty blonde and when I asked him about his book I thought he was going to hit me.”

Thea laughed. “Okay, fair point. I guess you’re just not his type.”

“Guess I don’t have a reason to hang around here anymore,” Roy teased but his eyes were steady on hers.

Without blushing she reached over the counter to lay a hand on his arm. “Don’t worry, you’re my type.”

Roy _did_ blush and Thea thought it might be the cutest thing she’d ever seen. “You should probably get back before Digg comes over to scold you again for taking a long lunch.”

“Yeah. Let me know when this disaster is going down, I want to see it.”

“Front row seats,” she promised and moved away to help make coffees for the growing lunch crowd.

 

It had only taken a minute after getting on the bus for Felicity to realize she had the wrong book. She had barely made it to the stop on time, and after smiling at the familiar driver she’d made her way towards the back where she found two empty seats. After sitting down, she reached into her purse and pulled out what turned out to be not her book.

The cover was wrong, and what’s more the handwriting on the inside wasn’t her loopy scrawl, but hard lines and sharp angles.

“Damn it,” she muttered to herself. She’d have to give the book back to Thea tomorrow, she didn’t have time to do it today. Slumping into her chair she debated how to pass the next twenty minutes to her next stop. She didn’t like using her phone on the bus because it often drained the battery quickly and she didn’t want to be left anywhere in the city without the ability to call 911.

After debating for a few seconds, Felicity pulled the book back out and opened it.

She guessed it was a man, just by the handwriting, and it was a pleasant surprise to know there was some guy out there reading Jane Austen, but a few pages in Felicity started to think this person, whomever they were, wasn’t reading for pleasure but for school.

There were underlined words, and she saw they were often big words or old-fashioned phrases no longer used, and sometimes in the margins would be synonyms for those words like a cheat sheet.

They were trying, she thought fondly, and started flipping through the pages to see what else they had written.

 _Reminds me of T_ was written next to the line where Emma proclaimed she knew everything about matters of the heart. There were other notes about how Emma reminded the reader of T and when Frank Churchill entered the story there was a note on the side written in all caps “LIAR” and Felicity wondered if the reader knew this or was guessing.

And so her drive went, reading little notes and commentary which made her smile and laugh and occasionally roll her eyes because he was such a guy, wondering why Emma was so obsessed with marrying everyone off.

She could write a three-page essay on why, Felicity thought wryly, and would be happy to give it to him when she returned the book if only she had the time to write it.

Instead she had to go back to the office and work another four hours because someone thought it would be a good idea to watch porn on the company computers and, surprise surprise, the servers were now infected with a vicious virus she had to take care of because she was the only one stupid enough to answer her phone.

She’d been promised a half day before her weekend started so she’d gone to the café she always went to when she had time (where she’d forgotten her book) and then gone in to work. It was on the way home she’d gotten the call to come back to work so she’d made it to the café to get her book with just enough time to get the bus back to work.

She was supposed to be in her pajamas right now, watching movies and maybe playing around with the idea of starting her own business so she could quit her god-awful job.

Nope, instead she was going to work reading the wrong book and wishing she had someone to call and complain about her day.

 

Oliver came by Thea’s business at the end of his day. He liked to pick a back booth and settle in with his homework while Thea cleaned and locked up for the day before they headed home together.

Some people might have thought it odd two grown siblings still lived together, but after everything they’d loss Oliver thought it made sense for them to stick together. You kept the people you trust close, was Oliver’s thought process. And he trusted Thea more than anyone else in the world.

“Hey,” he called as he let himself in. The place was empty and Oliver was marginally surprised Roy wasn’t hanging around trying to get the courage to ask Thea out. It seemed every time he turned the guy was there.

Which was….nice. For Thea, anyway. After the heartbreak and tragedy of his last relationship it had taken years for Oliver to get to a place where he was ready to start dating again. He was totally sure he was there yet, but he was starting to miss having someone to call at the end of the day. Someone to make smile with flowers or dinner out. Just having _someone_.

But he hadn’t that person yet, so he was trying to be okay with that until they did.

“Ollie? There’s a sandwich in the fridge for you.”

“Thanks,” he called back as he locked up the front door before going behind the counter to the small fridge where Thea kept milk and yogurt handy. Inside was a massive sandwich, one which he knew from experience would taste amazing. Thea had, after all, learned from the best.

Before their lives had come crashing down he and The had lived enchanted lives with butlers and drivers and all the money they could want. One person they had counted as family was Raisa, the cook. She had attempted to teach Oliver the basics of cooking but Thea had been the one to soak up the lessons and eventually use them.

The café she had worked at in high school was now hers, and Oliver couldn’t be prouder as he struggled through class after class at the local college. It was difficult, being older than the other students, and when he saw their drive and direction he couldn’t help but be exhausted.

He had no idea where he was going or what he was doing. He was just kind of hoping he would figure it out along the way.

As Oliver moved away from the counter his eyes caught the book beneath the register. “I’ve been looking for this-Shit.”

Thea came from the kitchen, a rag in her hands. “What?”

“I lost my copy of Emma, I was hoping this was it.”

“It’s not.”

“No.” He showed her the cover of the book. “Wrong cover.”

“Oh, man.”

Thea looked aggrieved but there was something odd about the expression. “I must have given Felicity the wrong one.”

“Who?”

“One of my regulars, she said she left Emma here earlier and I must have given her yours by mistake.”

“Felicity?” Oliver repeated. “I feel like I’ve heard that name before.”

“Oh?” she asked, overly innocent.

The pieces of the puzzle quickly clicked for him and he couldn’t decide if she was endearing or frustrating. “Thea Dearden-“

“For crying out loud, Ollie, don’t pull out my entire name. It’s not that big of deal.”

“You’re trying to set me up with a customer?”

“No, I’m trying to introduce you to a customer,” she corrected as if the minor words change made any kind of difference. “She’s nice, okay? And funny, and I like her and thought you could use a friend.”

“I have friends.”

“I don’t count,” Thea remarked wryly. “Just…just come in tomorrow around six, that’s what she comes in and you don’t like you can exchange books and move on. No harm, no foul.”

“You’re a pain my pass.”

“Right back at you, bro.”

 

Oliver figured he might as well just go in with Thea when she opened the café the next morning.

They shared a car more often than not because it was cheaper and easier. She usually drove to work and then Oliver took the bus in later in the day, picked up the car, and then grabbed her after she closed the café at the end of business day.

It was a system that worked for them.

She went in at five and usually started letting people in a half hour later even though the sign out front indicated they didn’t open until six.

Figuring he’d use the extra hour to get some work in opened a word document to start his paper on Emma but when he got a point where he needed to reference the actual book he cursed his sister and reached into his bag to pull out the borrowed copy.

He surprised to find writing on the pages inside, he thought he was the only person who did that.

On the first page, on the first line, she’d drawn a little arrow and written longwise in the margins ‘All I hear is JLM’s voice.’ And Oliver would have wondered what she was talking about if he hadn’t watched every version of Emma before starting the book.

He was a terrible reader and when Thea told him there were three movie and a YouTube series based on the story, including her teenaged favorite Clueless, Oliver had watched them all in an effort to better understand the book when he started reading it.

So he’d seen the BBC version with Jonny Lee Miller and it made Oliver smile because that’s who he’d been picturing whenever Mr. Knightley entered a scene.

She had underlined the first time Knightley was mentioned and drew hearts next to it which seemed… not childish, but maybe whimsical? There was a kind of

There were portions highlighted, phrases like ‘said Emma playfully’ which intrigued Oliver because he couldn’t fathom any importance to the phrase. There was plenty of classically romantic moment and interactions in the story, it hardly seemed like such a simple description warranted highlighting.

He flipped through the parts which had made his own cracked heart sigh a little, like the scene where Knightley and Emma danced and sure enough there were more highlighted passages and scribbled notes, not all of them legible.

Oliver was not a smart man, he was never the most intelligent person in the room, but he thought he was a pretty judge of character. He was good at reading people and while his interpretations weren’t always exact, they were usually pretty close.

His gut instinct told him whoever this Felicity was, she seemed as lonely as he was. She’d obviously read this story more than once if the multiple colors of ink and worn cover were any indication. She was a romantic looking for a little solace.

“I mostly read on the bus, so if you can’t read the stuff in the margin it’s because I wrote it on a moving vehicle.”

Oliver jerked his head up and saw a pretty blonde standing in front of him looking sunlight. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail at the crown of her head, a bright blue dress flaring from her hips and a long jacket unbuttoned over her shoulders.

Her smile left him a little breathless.

“Thea pointed me in your direction when I got in,” she explained as she reached into her bag. “Or at least she said I wanted you.”

She paused and did a little grimace, “Sorry. That came out wrong. I asked her if she knew who might have my copy of Emma and she said-“

“I get it,” he interrupted her quietly and she smiled, grateful. “Do you want to sit?”

“Oh, sure. I don’t have a lot of time, I have to catch the bus to work.”

Oliver set the book down and very pointed did look at Thea even though he could feel his sister’s gaze on him from the across the café. “You don’t sound excited about it.”

“I’m not,” she admitted as she set his book on the table next to hers. “It’s supposed to be my day off but I haven’t learned to ignore my phone when they call.”

“Let me buy you a cup of coffee.”

She seemed genuinely surprised by the offer. “That’s…that’d be nice. Thank you.”

Oliver got up and wished there was a way to wipe the smug look of Thea’s face. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“That’s okay,” she told him with a cheeky grin. “I think you got the message either way.”

“Just give me two coffees.”

“You’re going to drink two coffees?” she asked mockingly.

“Thea-“

“Dearden Queen, I know,” Thea waved away his scold with a laugh. She stepped away to make the coffees, one to go and one for here.

“She’s got to head to work, right?” Thea confirmed as she passed them to Oliver.

“Yeah.” He headed back to the table where Felicity was waiting.

“I’m sorry about my sister.”

“Why?” Felicity asked, as she accepted her coffee with a grateful sip.

Oliver, realizing Felicity didn’t understand Thea’s true intentions, shook his head. “Never mind. Thanks for bringing the book back, I need it for school.”

“I thought you might, there were a lot of notes which looked like a reference numbers.”

“They go with my outline for a paper I have to write.”

“Well, I’m definitely glad I brought it back then. I went to school for computer so not a whole lot of papers on Austen, but I imagine it’s not easy.”

“No, but I’m getting through it.”

“What are you going for?”

“No idea,” he admitted and watched her laugh.

“Honesty. I like that.”

He shrugged, embarrassed. “I’m trying to figure it out.”

“Then you will.”

He raised his eyebrows at the certainty in her voice. “You think so?”

“Anyone who is related to the force of nature which is your sister can’t be stymied by much. Immovable forces and all,” she added as she gestured with her cup. “I have to catch my bus, but it was nice meeting you Oliver.”

He tilted his head a little. “We haven’t actually met.”

Her eyes went wide at the realization and he thought if her hand was holding her coffee, it might have covered her mouth. “I’m so sorry, I just sit down and started babbling.”

“In your defense, I did ask you to.”

“Thanks,” she smiled at him giving her an out. She set down her coffee and held out red painted nails. “Hi. I’m Felicity Smoak and I was very nice to your book while I had it.”

With a smile Oliver reached out and hook her hand. “Oliver Queen, I mostly ignored yours until this morning.”

Again the bright laugh. “Honesty,” she repeated with a shake of her head, picking up her book and standing. “I’ll see you around Oliver.”

“See you around Felicity.”

Oliver watched her weave her way out of the café and watched her disappear past the window. Grabbing his book he absently opened it and saw written on the cover page a familiar feminine scrawl.

_I always like to spend time with people who hate Mrs. Elton as much as I do and have a smile like yours. You should do it more often._

Beneath the note was her name and phone number.

Without giving himself time to overthink it, Oliver pulled out his phone and sent her a text: _Mrs. Elton is literally the worst_.

The reply was instant and they didn’t stop texting until she had to go work but she promised to text him during her lunch and suddenly from one day to the next, the world didn’t seem quiet as lonely.


End file.
